Hawaii's Hilo gets its day in the sun

An early morning rainbow ends in downtown Hilo, Hawaii, in a view across Hilo Bay from the Liliuokalani Gardens.

An early morning rainbow ends in downtown Hilo, Hawaii, in a view across Hilo Bay from the Liliuokalani Gardens. (Mark Rightmire/Orange County Register/MCT)

Gary A. WarnerThe Orange County Register (MCT)

HILO, Hawaii — “Hilo — it is what it is” probably isn’t a tourism slogan that would get a thumbs-up from the Big Island city’s Chamber of Commerce.

But I don’t mean it as a put-down. It’s just advice from a longtime visitor who loves Hawaii’s “second city.” I also know the worst thing anyone can do for Hilo is to try to oversell it. No one is going to spend a weeklong honeymoon in Hilo or plan a Wall Street corporate retreat or a championship golf tournament there.

That’s all over on the other side, the rocky brown Kona Coast, with its 10 inches of rain per year and $400 per night megaresort hotel rooms.

Hilo, on the other hand, is a place often defined by its deficiencies. No famous gourmet restaurants, no luxury hotels, no postcard-worthy beaches. It’s more often wet and gloomy compared with the west side. Rain? Count on it. More than 125 inches a year.

But it has something you won’t find while strolling the T-shirt shops over in Kailua-Kona.

“Hilo is more relaxing and down-to-earth,” she Wilma Kuamoo, a waitress at Ken’s House of Pancakes, a locals hangout. “In other places, I think people have lost the Hawaiian spirit. They don’t have time to stop and talk. They’re too busy. Hilo isn’t that way.”

Hilo is getting a boost, or maybe a test, with Continental’s new nonstop service from Los Angeles. It’s the first West Coast nonstop to Hilo since 1983. Previously, visitors to Hilo had to fly to Honolulu and change planes (and often terminals). The planes pull up to the oversize Hilo International Airport, a remnant of a 1970s attempt to spur tourism to the area.

Tourism archaeologists can visit Banyan Drive, which seems caught sometime before the 1980s. The trees that flank the curving parkway have plaques to the famous visitors who were honored with a tree planting during their visit. Babe Ruth and Amelia Earhart are on the drive. The most recent famous name is Richard Nixon — when he was running for vice president in 1952.

The names underscore the reality that Hilo has become a tourism backwater in the past half-century, ever since the airport in Kailua-Kona meant that visitors to the big resorts no longer needed to make a stop in Hilo on the way to two weeks of lounging at the Mauna Kea or Kona Village.

But the very things that Hilo isn’t — slick, pricey, touristy — make it a draw for Hawaii vacationers looking for a different experience. Disney recently opened a resort on Oahu, and more than a few commentators have riffed that the resort is unnecessary because tourism, the islands’ No. 1 industry, has already turned them into one big theme park.

Hilo has been eclipsed in popularity by the Kona side. The Big Island is big — you could fit all the other islands inside it and still have lots of room. On the west coast, visitors drive long distances to get to a “destination” resort where enough greenery has been planted and watered to make you forget that you are on the brown, rocky flank of an old volcano.

Seeing the west side from the air is known to give vacationers “Kona shock,” an affliction that hits when you realize the weeklong vacation destination looks more like the moon than a tropical paradise. Once inside the resort gates, the irrigation and gardeners can hide it all pretty well. That’s not a problem in Hilo. All that rain may be a nuisance, but it makes it the garden side of the island.

Hilo, while it has places for tourists, is a real town maintained for locals. Its green hills and waterfalls are perfectly in tune with the lush Hawaii of most travelers’ imaginations.

Nature has been Hilo’s greatest strength and its weak point. The crescent-shaped bay sits at the foot of two volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. They are close enough that in the past century, lava has licked repeatedly at the edges of town.

But it is the ocean that has twice ravaged Hilo. The recent disasters in Indonesia and Japan have only added to the public interest about the killer waves of the kind that have smashed the area at least five times since the early 1800s. Hilo was struck in 1946 and again in 1960, the latter flattening the downtown, which was moved back several hundred feet from the water’s edge after the second tsunami.

Hilo has turned its sometimes deadly relationship with nature to its advantage. The city is the jumping-off point for tours of Kilauea, the most active of the island’s volcanoes. The lava and smoke have steadily moved away from Hilo in recent decades, though as late as 1984, lava from the currently dormant Mauna Loa made it to the outskirts of town.

The Imiloa Astronomy Center spotlights the work done far upslope at the observatories atop 13,796-foot Mauna Kea. It’s unlike any other planetarium you’re likely to visit because it ties the science of the cosmos to how that science was interpreted in traditional Hawaiian legends and was used by Polynesians on their epic voyages across the Pacific.

All that rain has an upside. Hilo is home to some of the most beautiful gardens and parks in the islands. Plumeria, orchids and anthurium bloom magnificently here, alongside the massive banyan and monkeypod trees.

My favorite stop in Hilo is Liliuokalani Park, out near Banyan Drive. Though it is named after Hawaii’s last queen (overthrown in 1893 by a coterie of businessmen who later pushed for U.S. annexation), it’s actually a Japanese garden with red arch bridges, stone lanterns and bonsai, the neatly miniaturized plants that require meticulous gardening skills. Nearby is Coconut Island, once the home of a traditional Hawaiian temple, or heiau. It can be reached by a short bridge.

Garden fans can get more at the larger Nani Mau Gardens, a botanical collection of native plants and imported specimens brought by settlers and traders from around the world. A somewhat less manicured environment is available at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, which includes a large rain forest among thousands of species of plants.

Downtown has retained an old Hawaii feel that so many island tourist towns have either wiped out or turned into a sickly sweet nostalgia. Here the stuccoed buildings and clapboard-sided stores, some still with corrugated tin roofs, are the real deal.

Hilo was, above all, a port, and it attracted fishermen and workers from around the world. You’ll find the usual Hawaiian mix of Japanese, Chinese and Filipino. But here there are also bits of Russia and the Caribbean, Portugal and the Midwest of the U.S.

The big annual event in Hilo is the Merrie Monarch Festival in April, which celebrates David Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii, who reigned from 1874 to 1891. Kalakaua tried to roll back many of the restrictions on traditional Hawaiian arts imposed by European missionaries, who arrived on the islands after Captain James Cook’s “discovery” of the islands in 1778. The Merrie Monarch Festival has parades, hula competitions, food fests and arts displays. It’s the only time of year when getting a room in Hilo can be a chore, I’ve found.

Foodies and people who like to eat should try to time a visit to include the twice-weekly farmers market. Farmers truck in local fruits — papayas and mangos are the best — along with macadamia nuts that the region is famous for. You’ll also find pastries and produce, cheeses and mushrooms (another outgrowth of Hilo’s famous rains). It’s held at the corner of Mamo Street at Kamehameha Avenue. The Suisan fish auction was a longtime early morning tourist draw, but it’s no longer held.

For fish, head to the Seaside Restaurant and Aqua Farm. It’s not the prettiest spot in the islands for dinner, crowded between some industrial buildings near the airport. But it’s a place to try moi, the traditional Hawaiian fish once reserved for the kings. It was kapu — forbidden — for any commoner to eat it. While Seaside’s version won’t make me forget the moi at Mama’s Fish House in Maui, it comes at about a third of the price.

Whether you find it inspiring or depressing, a visit to Lyman Mission House is important to understand the Western influences that were brought to the islands. It’s the home of Hilo’s first missionary, David Lyman, and reflects how it would have looked in 1854. The house is a mix of here and there — built in a New England style that wouldn’t be out of place in a Massachusetts village green, but with tropical koa wood floors. The house has interesting exhibits on local history, along with the flora and fauna the missionaries and those who followed discovered or brought to the area. The nearby Haili Church also looks like it was beamed in from the Boston area, circa 1857. By the 20th century, commerce had added ethnic as well as religious diversity to the area, which is manifested by the Taishoji Soto Mission, a Buddhist temple erected in 1913.

There are two choices for those who want to see what all that rain does besides fall on your head and car roof, and make flowers bloom. Rainbow Falls, on Waianuenue Avenue, is a five-minute drive from downtown.

“It’s best on a clear morning, when the sun hits the water just right and you get the rainbow effect,” said Sheryl Omori, who helps run Extreme Exposure, a shop in downtown Hilo that sells art-quality, large-format nature shots.

But if you are up for a short drive and short hike, head to Akaka Falls State Park, a half-hour or less north of town. The falls tumble 420 feet into a narrow gorge. This is that lush Hawaiian fantasyland that people crave — and you won’t find it on the Kona Coast. Visitors can get an OK look from up top, but the best vantage points are found by taking the trail for better viewpoints. It takes 20 minutes and can be quite steep.

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If you go:

Where to stay: Hilo Hawaiian Hotel. The best of a less-than-stellar collection of hotels along Banyan Drive, the onetime tourist heart of Hilo. Comfortable rooms, many with a beautiful view of Hilo Bay. 71 Banyan Drive, 808-935-9361 or castleresorts.com. Rooms from $95 per night.

The Shipman House. The B&B is in a massive Victorian house that’s owned by a descendant of a longtime local family. The do’s-and-don’ts list can put off some visitors. From $219 per night. 131 Kaiulani St.; 808-934-8002. hilo-hawaii.com

Where to eat: Seaside Restaurant and Aqua Farm. Fish come from an adjacent aqua farm, along with fresh choices from the sea. 1790 Kalanianaole Ave.; 808-935-8825

Ken’s House of Pancakes. It looks like a coffee shop that could be anywhere – until you try the macadamia nut pancakes. Then you’ll know why the parking lot is packed. 1730 Kamehameha Ave. 808-935-8711

Where to shop: Sig. Zane Designs. While Hilo Hattie is the best-known fashion name to come out of the city, this shop is the premier spot for a contemporary take on Hawaiian designs. 122 Kamehameha Ave., 808-935-7077.

Hilo Farmers Market, Mamo Street at Kamehameha Avenue. Market days are Wednesday and Saturday from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., when more than 200 local farmers show their wares. On other days, crafts dealers are on the site. hilofarmersmarket.com

What to do: Pacific Tsunami Museum, 130 Kamehameha Ave.; 808-935-0926. The small museum not only tells the story of the tsunamis that smashed Hilo, but keeps exhibits fresh with perspectives on the tidal waves that swept the Indian Ocean in 2005 and Japan this year.